Monday, March 5, 2012

Dr. Grumpy: "Hey, Susan. It's Grumpy. I need to talk to you about Mrs. Aspirin."

Dr. Concerned Internist: "What's up?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Well, you referred her to me for a TIA, so I ordered a carotid ultrasound. Her arteries look okay, but on one side she's got a small thyroid nodule, and the radiologist is worried it's malignant."

Dr. Concerned Internist: "So why are you calling me?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Well, it needs further work-up, and you're her internist."

Patient Dumping. I hate it! My husband's colleagues do it to him ALL THE TIME! I tell him it's because they know he's too nice. He ends up with all the difficult cases and the cases that will eat up a lot of their time. Hate it.

Wow. Yeah, Moose's prescription may seem harsh, but under the circumstances....

Can't she get into trouble for blowing off a patient like that? I hope you at least let the patient and her family know what a horrible doctor she is. I thought the whole purpose of going to generalist was to have someone who knows about all the different health problems you have.

Wow. Can you somehow let the patient know that the internist is a moron and she should find a different internist or would that be some sort of ethics violation? If I were the patient I'd want to know.

Sounds like Dr. Concerned thought (incorrectly) that Dr. Grumpy was asking her to be his gold-plated, bend over and grab your ankles scut monkey.

We get calls every day from specialist A who has told a patient to see specialist B, and demands that we order tests C, D, and E first, then round up all the info, get all the pre-auths, and then kiss his butt (all without seeing the patient).

Dr. Concerned needs to learn some people skills but she was probably fed up with dealing with lazy specialists (Dr. Grumpy not included).

Dr G - SPARING THE DEMOGRAPHICS/GEOGRAPHICS OF YOUR LOCATION, AND YOU HAVE TO SWIM WITH SHARKS EVERYWHERE YOU GO....

SOME POOLS ARE LARGER, THEREFORE ENCOUNTER WITH THE NASTIES ARE STATISTICALLY LESS FREQUENT, BUT THEY ARE STILL THERE. AND YOU DONT ALWAYS HAVE A PONY TANK....SO

ONE OPTION IS "NICE - MEAN IT" LETTER... DEAR SUSAN, SUCH A JOY TO RENDER THE BEST MEDICAL CARE ANYWHERE TO YOUR PATIENT MS. NODULE. AS YOU KNOW FROM OUR TELEPHONE CONVERSATION, HER CAROTID DUPLEX REVEALED AN EXCELLENT ANGIOGRAPHIC REPORT. HOWEVER, THERE WAS A THYROID NODULE THAT NEEDED FURTHER ATTENTION. TO ENSURE DILIGENT I HAVE FOLLOWED YOUR WELL APPRECIATED ADVISE AND SEEN THAT HER CARE IS DIRECTED TO APPROPRIATE SOURCES, ...THANK YOU FOR SUCH A WELCOME REFERRAL. BLAH BLAH."

EVEN IF YOU DELETE IT.BUT AGAIN, SHE MIGHT NOT "CATCH" IT.

AT LEAST YOU CAN SLEEP WELL. IF THE 2AM LORTAB REFILL CROWD WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE....HAVE A GREAT DAY

Actually, while people would probably agree with you in the abstract, the single most predictive factor related to whether somebody will sue a doctor for malpractice is whether they like the doctor, NOT the seriousness of the mistake or the amount of harm.

In other words, while they may say they prefer smart to nice, they're more likely to forgive Good Old Doctor Bob for paralyzing them from the neck down than they are to forgive Doogie Houser for giving them the wrong kind of antibiotic and failing to cure their URI in a timely manner.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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